In most retail establishments there are shelves upon which the various products the store is selling are displayed. These products may consist of canned or bottled foods as well as non-prescription pharmaceuticals. With many of these products, the label on the product, be it a label on the can or the label on a medicine bottle or the label on a glass food container, etc., can be quite small and, specifically, the ingredients contained in the container, while listed on the label, are difficult to read by those who have limited visual acuity. This is a particular problem with elderly persons since the ability to read fine print often deteriorates with advancing age.
It is of critical importance when a person is selecting an over-the-counter non-prescription pharmaceutical product contained in a relatively small plastic container, that (s)he be able to read the label so that the person can be satisfied that (s)he is purchasing the correct product. With small print on many of these pharmaceutical container labels this is simply not possible.
The problem also arises in supermarkets where people on restricted diets must be able to read the contents label on a food container to make sure that they are not buying food which contains ingredients that may be harmful to them. As an example, certain people should not eat foods that contain sugar and, thus, they must carefully review the labels on all food containers to make sure that the food within the container is sugar-free. Other persons may be allergic and/or have adverse reactions to other food ingredients and they, too, must read the container to make sure that it does not contain potentially dangerous ingredients. With many food products the ingredients, while listed on the label on the container, are difficult to ascertain because the print is relatively small.
It is not a satisfactory solution for those persons who have difficulty reading store product labels to ask store personnel to read the ingredients to them since this creates an undue burden on the store personnel and it might be embarrassing for those persons who have difficulty reading the product labels to have to ask someone to help them read the labels.
It is important that any magnifying device that is made available to store patrons for magnifying the ingredients on a product label be located in the vicinity of the area where a product is being offered for sale since patrons may not want to walk a great distance to be able to ascertain for themselves what the contents of the product are.